The ghost sits waiting patiently till I am half way
to a paradise of exhausted slumber before it somehow
manages to turn the radio over to medium wave.
The sound of the crisp digital broadcast suddenly lost,
abandoned into the vaporous ether like wisps of smoke
drifting out to sea and drowned out by the sound of Nelson’s drum
beating slowly as it recognises that some part of the country
is about to drown. Not my part surely as I wake with groggy eyes
puffed up and swollen from the ghostly attack on my right
to die slowly in peace and retune the radio
to a station where a story can be heard and in which
the golden slumber can be afforded more than a listener’s
digest.
The ghost, somewhere in the room breathes deeply
against my ear as the sound of static no longer sweeps
across my mind like a razor to the wrist, tearing as it goes.
There is no ghostly echo in the digital clatter and the noise
of communication is left to actress explaining in perceived
annunciation and ready to received plaudits to the Inspector
of the case why she wasn’t at home when the Butler
was found dead, perhaps he did it himself, she offers
as a weak and feeble attempt to discredit
the Butler and divert attention from her self
although she had motive, method and could be very
mean, her red stained lipstick quivering as the ghost
moans that he has heard it all before.
The sound of silence is worse, I cannot sleep at all
when that goes on blindly creating a cacophony
of explosive suppression and even the ghost
hates the soft stillness that Hades on a Sunday provides.
To come between the stillness, the static and the smooth
diction and stereophonic sounds
though is a minor miracle, the fourth wall of expectation
denounced as just a dream but where it shouts with purpose
against my head and screams for forgiveness
where forgiveness fears to tread, there the ghost and I
are in agreement, we both shudder at the interjection and turn the
sound up higher on any given channel to drown out the
damned.
Ian D. Hall 2015.